Reflections

I've been in a contemplative mood lately... I'm at that point where it's time to start thinking about what comes after grad school. Iowa seems like a good place for many reasons, despite what my Californian classmates think... though I must say that mountains do possess a certain attraction.

Much of my contemplation revolves around the big questions -- what are we here for, what's life all about, yada yada. While I can't claim to have made a great deal of progress in answering those questions, I can say that taking the time to slow down from the rush of so many other pressing deadlines to think about the questions... well, it's been a good thing that has lead to much insight and I'd highly recommend it.

I'm trying to think of recent breakthrough thoughts that I've had... but there haven't been many. Lately, it's been more of a time for other ideas to simmer together. New thinking about the economy -- how it works, what it means, what it's for -- merge with new understanding regarding human needs, which ties into a changing mindset brought on by a skyrocketing human population combined with an increasing level of affluence - and thus stress on the planet - around the world.

The number of people thinking in new ways -- writing books, articles, blogs. And much of that thinking is turning into new ways of doing things from new perspectives -- and that truly gives me hope. People are beginning to really solve problems -- to create a desirable future -- rather than to simply patch things up long enough for us to hobble on. It's exciting. And yet there is so much work to be done.

I believe that we, collectively, have the ability to create the future of the world. We are the ones that will shift the balance toward or away from the kind of world we all desire to live in - and we do so whether or not we are conscious of it.

Lemmings have been of interest to me recently -- yes, the little rodents that are known for following the pack over a cliff to fall to their death... while that's a myth that was perpetuated by Disney in the 1950's, lemmings are still interesting creatures. Did you know that one month after a female lemming is born, she can give birth to as many as 11 lemmings. This causes dramatic fluctuation in lemming populations. One specific lemming population that has been studied goes in 4-year cycles. The population skyrockets... then they eat all of the food that is available, and they go off in search of new food supplies, often moving in groups of hundreds or thousands... and this is where we get our mythical image of them. When they can't find enough food, there is a massive die-off, and population drops dramatically. As the population drops, the food supply is able to regrow. The few surviving lemmings in the area then start the cycle over...

The human population on earth is doing an interesting thing lately: it's skyrocketing. Clearly, people aren't lemmings. But we have to choose whether we want to be different than lemmings or not. We have the capacity to 1) realize this dramatic increase in population, and 2) understand how it's going to affect us, and 3) do something about it. We need to have a big-picture view of what we are doing while there are still good opportunities to do something: we have to exercise our mental capacity to understand what's going on... and climate change is a great example of that.

And that's why you should come to see one of the presentations that I'll be giving in Iowa during the week of March 4th. Bring your questions - let's talk.

Poland, Climate Presentations, and a thesis

Who'd have thought that just a few things could keep one so busy?

First, the fun stuff... took a 2-night, 1-day trip to Poland last week with a dozen of my classmates and 60 or so other schoolmates. We hopped on a ferry one evening, took an 8-hour ride across the Baltic, and landed in Gydnia, Poland early the next morning. Had a nice little breakfast on the ferry, then toured around Gydnia and Gdansk via foot and bus. My first time to eastern Europe, it was good to see a few remnants from the last world war -- and to be reminded of the devastation that it can cause. It was also good to see that people and places can recover from the atrocities of war, if not very quickly. Overall Poland is a delightful place full of people -- 40 million -- that have a pretty good sense of what's important in the world.

On to Climate presentations... gave my first "practice run" today to an audience much larger than I anticipated. I'd hoped for maybe 4 or 5 people -- just enough to put a little bit of pressure on so that I'd have to actually go through the slides from start to finish without stopping to change things -- which I always do when I practice alone. Instead of 4, 5, or even 8, however, there were over 20 people in the room. Thanks to all of them -- for grace, energy, and constructive comments -- hopefully it was a mutually beneficial experience for all of us in the room. I'm more aware than ever of the challenge of wanting to share so much information, but having a limited amount of time... I'm finding that I must continue to go back and pull things out of my presentation even though I feel these things make significant contribution to the overall point.

The countdown continues to the Iowa run... I'm up to 10 scheduled presentations over 7 days, and I'm quite excited about the opportunity to reach so many people, starting less than two weeks from today!

As far as the thesis goes... well, it's good! I'm finding that the three of us (our thesis is done in teams of 3) get along well and work quite well together. And we're pretty much kicking butt as far as having figured out the process that we will go through over the next month. And we're well on our way, having already done a first-round of several of our research methods... which has provided us with a better idea of what more we need to research so that we might go back and refine our work.

Oh - the thesis project... is about community food systems and how a community can work toward a sustainable food system. Interesting concept... and a bit scary when you start to dig into the food system... but I won't scare you with details today.

Time flies. And apparently I write slow... it's nearly midnight, and I'm tired. Soon I'll be able to write of another short trip: I head to Berlin on Sunday for three days away from Karlskrona, then return for a couple of days before heading to Iowa.

Society and economy

So I currently have 8 presentations scheduled in Iowa for the week of March 5th... will share the times and locations when they are all finalized... and I'm trying to come up with a way to introduce the fact that the economy exists in order to serve society, and not the other way around.

What do I mean? Take a look around... what kinds of things are we talking about and measuring? We talk about stock values, commodity prices, GDP, housing starts, interest rates, and other financial indicators. These are the things that make us feel good or feel not good about how our country is performing.

But when did the economy become the end?

Isn't reality that the economy is here to serve society -- to aid in delivering the goods and services that people want and need so that people can live better lives? Shouldn't, then, we be measuring the end goal -- and thus progress toward -- a happier, healthier, safer, and more-free country?

Fortunately, there are some people that are taking a look at happiness, health, safety, and protection of individual rights. Unfortunately, those numbers are falling.